A Pasteboard Crown Part 8

But these wealthy wall-flowers were never waltzed with. The very prettiest girl in the room could be relied upon to arrange her card to favor this man with the speaking eyes. And so, with drooping lids in full evidence, he swayed and whirled, reversed and backed, apparently by instinct, since his challenging glance never left his partner's face. He would think triumphantly of the two birds he had brought down with one stone, winning grat.i.tude from one and a flirtation from another.

Nor did he fail "to be agreeable" to humble people, for no one knew better than he how swift were the ups and downs of his profession.

Therefore, he treated with friendly consideration the "n.o.body" who might be a "somebody" the next time he saw him. Gravely respectful to the gray old solid men of commerce, hail fellow with that body of men known as "the boys," gambling just enough to keep in friendly touch with the big guns of the business, and seemingly ready to give up his very soul to the reporters, he was a matinee idol, a successful man, a general favorite. And yet, after all, disappointed; so many brief, transient loves had he known; so many charming hypocrites had made a farce of the grand pa.s.sion, depriving it of any touch of sanct.i.ty, that now an apathetic weariness had come upon him, and yet that was not the worst.

No one could have forced the confession from him, but in his heart he admitted his defeat. He had started out to win fame, but had attained only notoriety; and though he sneered and said to himself: "Fame has generally gone hungry, and I at least am well fed and have a nice little story to read in my bank-book," he was, all the same, a disappointed man.

As he turned to toss the paper wrapper and bits of ribbon from his parcel into the waste-basket his eyes encountered a picture of himself as the young Laertes. And he paused, looked at it frowningly, and commented: "You poor young fool! What a burning ma.s.s of hope and ambition you were! So honestly believing in acting as a veritable art, and--and forgetting everything in the joy of it! d.a.m.ned if you didn't!

But Lord! that was before you found your motto and began 'to be agreeable' to the world! Couldn't serve two G.o.ds, could you, sonny?

Well, being agreeable has paid, in some ways. But I have put up with your reproachful glances long enough. I think I'll take you down from there and send you over to the Missus. You won't hurt her the way you do me!" And, with a half-laughing, half-frowning face, he stepped on a low couch, that he might reach and lift down the offending, boyish Laertes.

He hurried a bit, for he knew that Claire Morrell was very exact in keeping her appointments, and that she might come in at any moment now, with her confounded stage-struck protegee, to whom he would never have given a thought, let alone an engagement, for he hated amateurs, had it not been that he had met the clever and witty, if ancient, Mrs. Van Camp, and knew her to be of the best old Dutch stock. Therefore, it would rather flatter his vanity to be able to exploit the name of her G.o.d-daughter as a member of his company, if only she might not be too heavy a load of awkward self-consciousness--if only she might be moderately good-looking. And then he set the picture down hard, with its long wire hooping, and coiling, like a live and very angry thing about it, and whistled, exclaiming aloud: "Oh, by Jove! I wonder if either of those bright and pretty girls the Morrell had with her last night might be the protegee? They were both charming, but how that dark one did light up when Morrell led the applause for my Queen Mab speech! But no such luck, I suppose!"

And, man-fashion, he drew out his handkerchief to dust the small wingless Love on the pedestal between the draped curtains of a mock-window, whose long Holland shade really covered a very narrow door, spring locked and never used--never, one could readily understand that from the inconvenience of its approach, but Mr. Thrall carried the key.

And out in Broadway Claire Morrell was saying: "It's so very tiring, this shopping; suppose, Miss Lawton, that we step in at the theatre and see if Mr. Thrall is there now, instead of making a special trip to-morrow. If he is in he will see us, if he has gone home we can cool off in the dark auditorium. What do you say, Miss Dorothy?"

For Miss Morrell had kept her talk with the manager and her appointment a secret, feeling that Sybil would thus be more at her ease, more natural in manner, than she could possibly be if she knew she was being inspected or examined, like a servant seeking a new place. And now, as the sisters smilingly consented to her plan, she turned in between the big billboards that announced the week's run of "Romeo and Juliet," with the name of the lady star in very, very large letters and "supported by"

in small type. Then the name of the gentleman who played Romeo appeared in letters two sizes smaller than those of the star, and lower down, in quite small type, one read: "Mr. Stewart Thrall as Mercutio."

And Sybil tapped the letters with her parasol-tip, and said: "His performance was the best in the play. Why are his letters not the biggest?"

And the actress laughed, as she answered: "Children always ask difficult questions. Wait till you're older, my dear. Perhaps this time next year all this mystery of type and printers' ink will be clear to your understanding. But you are right about the acting of Thrall; his Mercutio is the best of his time."

She went to the box-office window, and learning from the half-strangled Barney that the manager was in his private office, she swept them across the vestibule, from whose walls the gold-framed pictured actors looked down inquiringly, tapped at a door, and, in answer to a cheery "Entrez!"

entered the room, crying: "May I bring up my light infantry?"

And in answer to his laughing "By all means--I'm in need of reinforcements, you know!" she drew the girls inside, saying: "The Misses Lawton, Mr. Thrall, who ask of your grace a few moments hospitality and rest, as they, like myself, are country bred, and therefore easily shop-wearied."

"Well, none of you are shop-worn, at all events!" He laughed, as he found seats for them by the simple process of sweeping ma.n.u.scripts, sheet-music, and what-not from the chair to the floor in a corner.

"Ah!" exclaimed Miss Morrell to the girls, "would he not make a blithe and bonnie housekeeper?"

And Sybil acquiesced with: "A place for everything and everything in that one place," while Thrall drew up the shade of the one real window, and let the full light into the dull red room, showing the age-blackened, iron-heavy, splendidly carved table and desk and chair and the freshness of the two young creatures looking up at him with such honest admiration in their innocent eyes as to fairly embarra.s.s him.

And, so strange a thing is memory, for just one moment he was a boy again in roundabout jacket and broad white collar, and his only sister, seventeen years old, stood at the altar with her young minister bridegroom, and looked at him with just such sweetly innocent eyes. He shook his head sharply and pa.s.sed his hand across his eyes. His sister had been dead these twenty years--what had come over him?

And then Miss Morrell, who had been peering under and over everything in the room, asked, plaintively: "Where is it, Stewart, mon ami? What have you done with it? Am I to die before your eyes from sheer exhaustion, and without even an effort on your part to save me?"

And he, pointing to a hanging cabinet, said: "There's the life-saving station!" and threw open the door, revealing a complete outfit for coffee-making. Then, noting the girls' surprised looks, he went on: "Ah!

I see you are not very well acquainted with my friend here, or has she been clever enough to conceal her dissipation? Be that as it may, we have here an awful example--a victim to----"

"Stewart Thrall!" threateningly exclaimed Miss Morrell, as she lighted the spirit-lamp beneath the coffee-pot.

"A victim to coffee! Morning, noon, or night, her one cry is 'Coffee!'

Ah, it's sad! Such a promising young-creature as she was, too! But you see what coffee has brought her to!"

"I'll buy a French pot and a bottle of alcohol on the way home," laughed Sybil, "and see where it will land me!"

"Gracious!" cried Dorothy, "you will land in a sanitarium if you attempt to increase the amount of coffee you are taking already!"

"Oh, are you one of the devotees of the little brown berry?" asked Miss Morrell. "Well, we are three, then, for that man there adores it, in spite of his jibes at me!"

"I drink but a reasonable amount," declared Thrall, "while you--Miss Lawton, will you push that biscuit-jar this way? Do you know, when the rehearsal is called, this enslaved creature drinks coffee because work is beginning. Later she drinks coffee because work is over. When it is cold, she drinks coffee to warm her. When it is warm, she drinks coffee to cool her!"

"My very dear friend," interrupted Miss Morrell, "there is a strangely familiar sound about all that. Do you really believe no one else ever heard of Thackeray?"

"And Thackeray's daughter?" laughed Sybil.

"Who read d.i.c.kens," added Dorothy, with dancing eyes.

"'When she was glad, she read d.i.c.kens,'" quoted Miss Morrell.

"'When she was sad, she read d.i.c.kens,'" added Sybil.

"So you see, sir," continued the actress, "even if quotations are not exact to the letter, they are sufficient to prove you are a plagiarist!"

"Good heavens! Who would have believed so many people remembered a man named Thackeray!" said Thrall, with mock astonishment. "Now Vanity Fair forgets him entirely."

"A very natural revenge! Who cares to remember the artist who paints an unflattering portrait? Poor Vanity Fair wanted to be idealized a bit.

Oh, wait, Stewart--wait! Don't pour yet, there's a cigar-clip and a postage-stamp in the bottom of that cup! Now pour! If only you could be induced to write a few 'Household Hints' for the aid of young house-keepers!"

"Yes! My services to domestic science would about equal in value my services to art!" he jeered.

Honest little Dorothy, accepting the Sevres cup extended to her, lifted clear blue eyes to her host's face, saying: "You should not speak so contemptuously of what you have done, Mr. Thrall. If acting is an art, as persons say, a man who acts Shaksperian characters very beautifully does a real service to that art--I think!"

"Bravo!" cried Miss Morrell, tapping her spoon against her cup. "Bravo, little play-lover! A charming compliment, and a very just rebuke also for your insincerity of speech, Stewart, my friend!"

And he, jumping to the conclusion that it was Dorothy who wanted to go upon the stage, felt a pang of disappointment that surprised him by its sharpness, as he somewhat gravely answered: "It was not insincere. You know well enough," nodding his head toward Claire Morrell, "that this week's return to the fountain-head of English drama has not been made from love or from a desire to improve public taste. You know it is but a catch-penny device--an advertis.e.m.e.nt. I might"--he glanced at the wrapt face of the young Laertes as he spoke--"I might have served art once.

Indeed, I know it; but"--he laughed a hard little laugh--"art and mammon are no more to be served by the same man than G.o.d and mammon, and he who serves art entirely and lovingly will have mighty little to show for his labor!"

"At least," broke in Sybil, hotly, with dark face aglow, "he would have the joy of his unskimped service and the comfort of a thorough self-respect!"

And again Thrall felt that swift pang of regret that this was not the stage aspirant. For to himself he had been saying: "These innocent, wholesome girls are two buds in the garden of life. This fair one, like a pale blush-rose, reaches her most perfect beauty now, in the close-folded bud form; later its perfect blossoming will reveal it pale and shallow, though very sweet. But the other one, she with the l.u.s.trous eyes and the mutinous red mouth, is like one of the red damask buds of Southern France, now ideally beautiful, yet the opening of velvety petals will betray depth after depth of deepening color, free wave after wave of perfume, until the very sweetest, the very purest tint of glowing color, will be found at last in the deep splendor of the fully open heart! Yes, this girl will blossom into a splendid womanhood. And what a face for the stage!"

And then he was aware of Miss Morrell setting down her cup and saying, briskly: "A little business now, Mr. Manager, if you please! Miss Lawton here is very keen to go upon the stage. She is immensely ambitious, absolutely without experience, but humble in mind enough to be willing to begin at the bottomest bottom. I would gladly give her her start in my company, if I had room for her, and I would not ask you to consider her wish if I did not truly believe she had in her the making of a good actress."

Mr. Thrall turned surprised eyes toward the happily smiling Dorothy.

Sybil had gone white when her friend began to speak for her, and sat still and cold, waiting for her doom.

"In heaven's name!" thought he. "What has come to the Morrell--to think that child can act?" Then he glanced at the rigid figure of Sybil, and said, slowly: "And you--have you no desire for the stage life?"

She raised her dark eyes, and said, very low: "I would give my soul to act!"

Miss Morrell's nervous fingers closed sharply. She wished the girl had not said that, and in the same instant Dorothy exclaimed: "Oh, Miss Morrell, Mr. Thrall thought you were speaking of me!"

And actor as he was, the man turned suddenly to his desk to hide the color he knew was burning over his face, and the senseless delight that flashed through him at the words. Presently he asked if her friends permitted her to take this step. Being rea.s.sured on that point, he inquired if she had had any experience as an amateur. And when she replied "No!" with a sadly fallen countenance, he smilingly commented: "No tears are called for yet!"

And Miss Morrell broke in with: "And no lessons in elocution has she had--no, not one!"

"Thank G.o.d!" fervently exclaimed Thrall. "Decidedly, your case looks hopeful, Miss Lawton."